According to a story on the front of yesterday's MetroWest Business section, roughly half of all American pet owners now buy holiday gifts for their dogs and cats.

A cashmere bed and baseball jerseys for Fido, needlepoint collar and a musical menorah for Fifi will set you back $1,000 or so, but surely it's worth every penny to see the delight on their furry little faces.

Augghh.

Dogs and cats have extremely discerning taste, no doubt about that. They can tell the difference between a real Oriental and a Building 19 knockoff quicker than an antiques expert, and will get sick only on the carpet of highest quality. But most four-legged friends could live a relatively happy life, or even nine lives, without silk or cashmere.

And most have no expectations about being showered with pricey baubles to honor Christ's birth, the miracle of the oil at the Temple in Jerusalem, Kwanzaa, Eid or the winter solstice.

Unlike their human counterparts, dogs and cats won't even take offense if you use the wrong words to wish them well.

These days, we're as cantankerous as Lucy van Pelt when the season of goodwill rolls around.

Some vow to boycott stores if the salesclerks don't say ``Merry Christmas.'' Others are outraged by anything other than ``Happy holidays.''

``Season's greetings?''

Them's fighting words. It's up to strangers to know which holiday we celebrate and say only what we want to hear.

Woe unto anyone who dares share the wrong pleasantry.

And woe unto anyone who gets in our way while we're trying to shop.

If we want our kid to have the hottest electronic game at a super discount, we can't be shy about throwing punches at fellow K-Mart shoppers.

Augghh.

Charlie Brown didn't know how good he had it back in 1965, back before Santa shared the drugstore aisle with ghosts and goblins at the end of September and radio stations started blaring ``Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer'' on Veterans Day.

In the bald-headed kid's heyday, overnight shipping wasn't an option for sending packages, and yet the catalogs didn't start piling up until late November. In the e-mail era, dunning begins in August to order your Christmas cards NOW!

Other things haven't changed much since Charles Schulz's classic first aired.
People still send vast arrays of cheese logs and salami sticks to those they claim are their friends.

By the time December rolls around, $49.95 looks like a bargain for some pancake mix and a 6-inch slice of Canadian bacon in a box, and in the frenzy of it all, we start to think the Pull My Finger Santa might be a great way to tell Aunt Myrtle we're thinking of her.

Barbie's still on wish lists, just as she was when Violet first gave Charlie Brown the bum's rush. What's changed is the company the buxom plastic fashionista keeps. Big-eyed Bratz, and their skimpy but pricey wardrobes, have muscled in on Barbie's turf.

The fake trees Charlie Brown scorned are bigger and more ornate than ever. They cost about the same as a Ford Mustang did when the holiday cartoon classic debuted, and a real tree runs in the neighborhood of a new Lexus this year.

Augghh.

What would Charlie Brown make of news Salvation Army bell-ringers aren't welcome on certain street corners and public schools rarely allow any mention of Christmas at all?

Yet, somehow, just as Schulz' alter ego found out in 1965, there's something special about this time of year, no matter how commercialized and secularized we make it.

Maybe it's something as large as a donation of 100 turkeys to the food pantry or a soldier coming home. Maybe it's something as small as a card from a friend or watching ``A Charlie Brown Christmas'' with a child who's never seen it before.

If it brings a zigzag smile, it's special.

And, just for a moment, there's no need to yell ``Augghh.''

Julia Spitz can be reached at 508-626-3968 or jspitz@cnc.com. Check metrowestdailynews.com or milforddailynews.com for the Spitz Bits blog.